Nightmares - Clouis OneShot
by GoofyGomez
Summary: Louis wakes up from a nightmare, and Clementine comforts him. But as she does, she also shares with him a deeply traumatic experience. The story of how Javier Garcia met his doom. Rated T for strong language and depiction of violence.


Clementine had nightmares. That wasn't a new development. This night, however, it was different. She'd been tired all day but somehow could not go to sleep. She looked out the window into the cloudless sky and stared blankly at the crescent moon. Louis always said that was its prettiest stage, and she kind of had to agree with him. There was something mysterious about the dark side of the moon, staring right at them like an unblinking eye in the sky.

She stared at the window for a while before shifting her attention to the room itself. On the other side of the room, AJ slept soundly on his bed, light snores escaping his lips every now and then. She wondered what it was that roamed in his head at night; the only time she could not protect him. Sometimes he had nightmares, and afterward she would comfort him by humming a song or telling her a story she would recall from before the apocalypse.

Clem looked to her right, where Louis lay sprawled over the covers. _He surely is a heavy sleeper_ , she thought. Most nights, after having a nightmare, she'd just lie there and stare at him, studying the freckles on his face and shoulders. She'd never told him this, but there was a voice inside her head that told her he already knew. She didn't mind though; she loved him.

But something unexpected happened as she watched him. He started mumbling and muttering incoherent words, his arms flailing around. His brow was creased and she could see his eyelids shift as his eyes looked around in the void of sleep. When the thrashing had become too much for her, she sat up and took hold of his shoulders, shaking him firmly.

"Lou," she kept whispering, hoping that he'd hear her voice through whatever horror he was dreaming. After two minutes of trying, his eyes finally fluttered open. His breathing was still heavy, and Clem's hand on his chest told her his heartbeat was through the roof.

"Wha – what happened?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes and finding Clementine's golden ones staring at her.

"You were having a nightmare," she informed him, pursing her lips. She knew all too well what those could do to a person.

"I guess I was," he said, his voice gruff from sleep, "Sorry I woke you."

Clem had to smile at that, "Oh I wasn't sleeping," she said, her hand still on his chest, drawing small circles.

"Why not?"

"Nightmares," she said simply, hoping that would explain it.

"I get you," he said, nodding and sitting up with her. The nimble moonlight that seeped through the boards on the window cast a heavy shadow on both their faces and Louis had to strain his eyes to spot her.

"Wanna talk about it?" she asked after a moment of silence, her voice expectant. She'd never seen him this agitated after a dream, and she was worried about him.

Louis sighed, running his hands through his hair, "Alright, I guess."

"What was it about?"

"I – it was about Marlon," he admitted, making Clem flinch. They hadn't really talked much about his best friend since he'd died. She didn't even know if he still blamed her a bit, deep down.

"I was in the courtyard, alone," he began. "And there were voices coming from everywhere, like a chant. They were telling me I fucked up, that I should have done more. They knew I was a screw up, and that I couldn't save my best friend."

"It wasn't like that," she said suddenly, running a gentle hand over his cheek. "You don't have to blame yourself. Marlon's death wasn't your fault. It was," she trailed off, her words caught in her throat. "It was AJ's," she said finally, nodding along with her words.

"No, it wasn't his fault," he dismissed, shaking his head decisively; "I should have seen it. All the time he spent holed up in that office, I knew I should have come to him. But I didn't."

"I stayed in my music room, like a fucking coward," he chastised himself, closing his eyes in frustration. "You wanna know something funny?"

"What is it?" she asked shyly, hesitant to learn what he would say.

"It was actually Marlon who got me into music. Well, sort of."

"Did he, now?" she asked, not at all surprised that he'd talk about his beloved piano.

"Yeah. One day when we were walking around the school, we saw Mr. Howe playing for some of the younger kids," he told her, raising his eyes to meet hers. "And Marlon dared me to sneak in at night and carve something obscene on it."

"And did you?" she inquired, thinking about the last thing Louis had carved into it: their initials inside an apparently potato-shaped heart. The memory made her smile.

"Hell no. As soon as I got there, I fell in love," he exclaimed, doing his best to keep his voice steady for AJ's sake. "I started pressing the keys tentatively and Mr. Howe found me out. I thought he would give me detention, but all he did was clap."

"He said I had real talent, and that he would teach me if I wanted to. I was so excited, I wanted to start right then and there." The way he talked about music, he sounded so genuinely interested. Clementine had noticed that not a lot of people had a passion these days, what with being alert for monsters all the time. But Louis was different. He'd found something he was passionate about, and devoted time to it.

She admired the way he looked at life. She'd been fighting to survive for so long; it was easy to forget to live sometimes. Louis brought that side out of her, whenever they had hunting duty together for instance. He'd make her take some time to herself: be it with a quick card game or batting practice with upside-down walkers.

"After that, Marlon supported my passion every turn her got," Louis continued, yanking Clem out of her thoughts. "He would always cheer for me when I performed for the school, and would sometimes help me tune it."

"Did you make him blow on the strings as well?" she teased, a smile tugging at her lips.

"I did, but he knew me all too well," he said regretfully, a similar grin lighting up his freckled features. It was times like these that Clementine realized just how many freckles he had. The bottom half of his face was almost entirely covered, and as they got lower they cascaded down his throat and onto his shoulders. She always thought they were unique and beautiful, and had one time told him what she thought. He'd blushed and said a stupid joke, but Clem knew he was thankful.

"I know how you feel, Louis," she said suddenly, reality kicking in, "to feel like you could have done more. To believe with all your heart that you should have been stronger, or faster, or something." By now, her eyes were filling with unbidden tears.

"It changes you, I won't lie to you," she continued, sniffing loudly and wiping the tears off her face. Louis stared at her in silent admiration. "I can't say it will get easier, because it doesn't. The pain will always be there, but you can cope with it by keeping your mind occupied. God knows I've lost more people than I care to admit," she whispered, hugging her legs.

Louis saw her and immediately shook her head. He leaned in and opened up her arms, letting her rest her head in the crook of his neck. His arms embraced her gently and he started humming a tune. She recognized it as the song he'd taught her on the piano: Hallelujah.

She felt at peace at that moment, surrounded by Louis and basking in the stillness of night. At one point, Louis stopped humming and looked at her hesitantly. When she noticed, she raised an eyebrow at him. "What is it?"

"No, it's nothing," he said, looking down.

"Come on, we've got time," she encouraged, offering him a small smile.

"Do you wanna talk about your dream?" he whispered, not daring to meet her eye. She was taken aback by the question, but considered it nonetheless. She'd never told anyone about it, not even AJ. He knew the gist of it, but she has never gotten into detail about what happened at the McCarrol Ranch.

"Yeah, I think so," she said, surprising even herself. What was it about Louis that compelled her to open up? She took a deep breath and looked up at him.

"It all started three years ago, when I'd lost AJ to the New Frontier. I had lost everyone else, and I thought maybe they could take care of him better than I could," she said, closing her eyes. "Only by the time I realized what they'd done, it was too late. I tracked him down to a ranch near the town where I was staying, and I tried to get him back."

"But you did, didn't you?" Louis asked hesitantly.

"I did," she said sadly, looking back up at the moon, it's unblinking eye judging her from up above. "But I cost someone else his life…"

"So how is it that a professional baseball player became a walker killing machine?" Clem asked as they stepped over a fallen tree.

"I fucked up, simple as that," Javi replied, helping her up an unsteady branch.

"Gabe told me you had a gambling problem, but I don't know how that can ruin your career," she wondered aloud, looking back at the man. He was still wearing his baseball shirt, but he'd changed his jeans after they'd gotten a huge hole down below.

"I would bet on my team losing, and then play badly on purpose," he admitted guiltily, scratching the back of his head and looking away.

"Don't worry, I won't judge you," she assured him when he caught him, grinning at him.

They'd been walking for close to three hours, and the trees were still extending as far as the eye could see. According to the local people of Richmond, of which Javi was now the leader, the McCarrol Ranch was located southwest of what used to be Prescott. So far they hadn't seen anything, but they kept going forth. Clementine was just glad to know where her little boy was, and Javi was a good enough companion.

They walked passed a sign that read 'Prescott – 12 miles' and Javi sighed. "At least we're on the right track."

"I guess we are."

Javi fidgeted with the hem of his shirt for a while as they walked in silence. Finally, about thirty minutes later, he spoke up, "Hey Clem?"

"Hm?"

"What is AJ to you?" he asked, making her stop in her tracks. "I mean, if he's not your son, is he like your brother?"

Clementine pursed her lips and looked at the man in front of her. She scanned him for a while, and eventually decided that he was actually just curious and not trying to mock her. She sighed,

"I knew his parents. Alvin and Rebecca," she explained, resuming their walk and quickening her pace. "They were great people. Alvin sacrificed himself to save me, and Rebecca begged me to take care of her son before she died of hypothermia. And so I did."

"I can't even imagine what you've been through, Clementine," Javi said apologetically, "I know we've had it rough, but you survived all on your own. I can appreciate that."

"I haven't always been on my own," Clem commented shyly as they got to an intersection and took the western route. They were close, Clem knew it. "Some people took care of me when this all started."

"What happened to them, if you don't mind me asking?"

"What happens to everyone, they died," she said bluntly, harsher than she meant to.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything," said Javi, holding up his hands. Clem didn't answer, and so they stayed silent for the rest of the walk.

The scenery around them didn't change much. Orange leaves adorned every tree, signaling the beginning of autumn. The dried up leaves crunched under the weight of their footsteps, and she could hear songbirds chirping overhead. The rest of the way was spent in silence, in which Clem pondered the possibility of actually getting AJ back.

She'd been so focused on her survival those last couple of months, with the firm belief that the New Frontier had killed the last vestige of her life before Kenny's death. After she found out he was still alive, she vowed to herself that she'd never give up hope on him again, no matter the odds. She was pulled out of her thoughts when Javi whistled from up ahead.

She perked up and ran the remaining twenty feet up to him. When she got over the small hill, she gasped. There it was, a small broken down wooden house in the middle of a small clearing. The grass surrounding it was badly overgrown and crows cawed from atop the fence posts, creating a cacophony of sound that sent chills down Clementine's spine.

"I can't believe we found it," said Javi, his hand son his hips and a smile on his face.

"Don't take your chickens before they're hatched," suggested Clem.

"I think you mean 'count'," Javi corrected her, making her roll her eyes.

"Whatever." Before they started walking forward, Clementine turned to Javi and closed her eyes, "Javi, I just want to thank you for coming all this way to help me find him. I just hope it was worth it," she added, glancing at the ramshackle house.

"It's no problem, Clem," he assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder, "After all you did for us, it was the least I could do."

Clem smiled, and together they set forth toward the house. They traipsed through the high grass, cutting it down when need be. As they got closer, a murder of crows took flight at once from among the shrubbery, taking with them a layer of dust and resin that had built up around the structure. Before coming close to the porch, Clem held up a hand to stop Javi and whistled.

At once, several growls and moans started to announce the presence of walkers around them. For the scarce space there was, the volume of the noise was staggering, and both of them decided to bolt for the house. Javi kicked down the door with one single steady blow, and Clementine found a chair to prop against it once inside. Bangs and howls came from the other side of the door, and Javi and Clem took a moment to take a breath.

"Fuck that was close," said Javi, heaving his bat over his shoulder. "Any idea where the nursery is?"

Clem looked around at the room they found themselves in. It was the remains of a rundown living room, its furniture sprawled everywhere. It looked as though a war had been waged here. How could AJ be alive in here? Clementine kept thinking, her mind wandering to her boy.

Moving on from the living room, they walked into what used to be the kitchen. It was now a flurry of cans spilled on the floor. Most of them were empty, but some remained untouched, their contents not having gone to waste yet. There were mud tracks on the floor, and Clem kneeled, inspecting them.

"These look recent," she exclaimed, looking back at Javi.

"Recent as in…?" urged Javi, examining the rest of the room.

"As in, the people who left these must have come by just a couple hours ago," she said bitterly.

"They probably had a pantry full of food here," Javi reasoned, looking around, "And these people just saw the opportunity and took it. It doesn't mean anything," he said.

"How do you know they didn't take AJ too?" she raised her voice, anger flashing in her face.

Before they could get into a full blown argument, they heard a soft cry coming from somewhere in the house, and an even softer shushing by a different voice.

"AJ," Clementine exclaimed, her eyes widening. She stood up and ran toward the sound, knocking over chairs and broken down furniture in her path. A few paces into the hallway, she arrived at a door that was unlike the others in the house. It was completely blue, with a small rainbow scrawled near the middle.

"This must be the nursery," Javi whispered from behind her. She nodded and took out her weapon, instructing him to do the same. As he raised his bat, Clementine slowly pushed the door open and peered inside. It was a spacious room, with a boarded up window on one side and a rocking chair beside the door. Her eyes had to adjust to the dim lighting but after a moment, there he was.

AJ was standing in a small cot, silently crying for comfort with his hands stretching through the bars. Clementine tried to go to him, but stopped in her tracks when she heard the distinctive click of a rifle.

"Don't you take another step, you thieves," a female voice emerged from the shadows, its tone shaky but still menacing. "Raise your hands if you know what's good for you."

Clementine and Javi both raised their hands carefully, looking in the direction of the voice. Its owner stepped slowly forward, letting the dim light coming from the hallway shower her face. She was an old woman, about sixty, with bright white hair and winkles on her face. Her piercing blue eyes stared with resolve at the intruders, and her hands held a hunting rifle, aimed right at Clementine's chest.

"We're not thieves," Javi assured the woman carefully, eyeing the weapon in her hand.

"That's what a thief would say now, isn't it?" she sneered, training the barrel of the gun on Javi instead. "You've fucked with us enough. We have nothing left." Her resolve shook for a moment, slow tears trickling down her face. "Please just let us be."

"We're not here to kill you," Clem assured the woman, slowly lowering her knife to the ground as a sign of good faith. "We just came for AJ," she added, gesturing to the baby, who was now watching the scene unfold before him with wide eyes.

"How do you know his name?" the woman demanded, a threat at the tip of her tongue.

"My name's Clementine," replied the girl, her golden eyes darting to the toddler in the cot, "I was the girl the New Frontier took AJ from," she said bitterly.

"So you're Clementine," repeated the old lady, scanning Clem up and down, "I thought you'd be older."

"How do _you_ know who I am?" It was Clem's turn to interrogate the old woman, furrowing her brow in confusion.

"Your boy here's been calling for you since we took him in," she said, gesturing to AJ. "I figured he was calling for his mama; guess you're not his mama."

"She's as good as," butted Javi, rather angrily stepping forward. The woman shifted to aim at him, but bent over backwards in pain, and dropped the rifle. Javi quickly ducked for the gun, and held it firmly in his hands, aiming at its previous owner.

Clem, however, looked at the woman. She was clutching her stomach, and Clementine noticed a pool of blood oozing from beneath her shirt. Slowly walking toward her, Clem kneeled beside the woman. She hesitantly reached for the hem of her shirt, and lifted it up. A pulsing bite mark stood bright on her abdomen.

"You're bitten?" Clem exclaimed.

"Those fuckers attacked us this morning," explained the woman, "swarmed the place with walkers and killed my Marvin. I managed to shoot one of them, so they ran away. But one of the lurkers got me. I've been sitting here; trying to calm AJ down for whatever time I have left."

As she finished, they heard a loud bang coming from down the hall, "Clem, I think we should get the hell out of here," suggested Javi, lifting the rifle and checking the chamber. It barely had two rounds, so he discarded it in favor of his bat.

Clementine rushed to the cot and lifted AJ gingerly. She hugged him close to her chest and smiled. "You're safe now, goofball," she whispered.

"I don't know about that, Clem!" exclaimed Javi, already swinging his bat and crushing a walker's skull. "Clementine, look for a way out. I'll hold them off."

Clem looked around frantically, searching for any alternative exits. She spotted the window and ran to it, trying to force the boards out. "It's not budging!"

"Here, use this," the woman offered, weakly lifting the discarded rifle up to her with one hand and clutching her stomach with the other. "I might as well go out saving the little guy," she breathed, both of her hands applying pressure on her fatal wound.

Clem set AJ back down on the cot and braced herself. She used the butt of the rifle to smash the boards from the window. After three strikes, the screws on one side gave out and the board swung out of the way. All the while, Javi kept grunting with the effort of keeping the walkers from off of them. Once Clem had successfully broken down three boards, there was enough room for them to wiggle through. She turned to Javi and called for him. That was her first fatal mistake.

At the time, he was holding the door down against the swarm of corpses on the other side. When he turned his attention, the walkers got the better of him and the hinges on the door gave out under their weight. Javi lost his footing and fell to the floor, landing on his back. The blue door with the rainbow on it was now the only thing keeping the walkers off him.

Unfortunately, they had now spotted Clem and AJ, and were slowly crawling their way to them. She drove her knife into one of their skulls, and turned to the man under them. "Javi! Can you get out of there?" she screamed foolishly.

Javi grunted and forced the door upwards, struggling against at least six corpses. He got a little wiggle room, but there wasn't enough. As he tried to slip through the gap and roll away, a rotten hand took hold of his arm and pulled him in. Javi didn't have time to yell before their teeth sank into his shoulder, tearing his shirt open and ripping into his flesh.

"NO!" screamed Clem, taking her gun and shooting another walker that got too close to her, before finishing off the one that had its grip on the man. "Javi!"

He was still struggling against the walker until its head exploded from the force of the bullet. Coughing blood onto the floor, he rolled on his side, looking straight at Clem with pleading eyes. "Get out of here, Clem!" he begged, tears in his eyes. "Tell Gabe I –," but he was cut off when yet another walker sank its teeth into his right arm.

Snapping out of her reverie, Clem took AJ in her arms and slowly backed away. Her eyes were still glued to the man who'd sacrificed himself for her, now using his last remaining strength to keep the walkers focused on him. She turned around, her eyes misting over, and clambered over the shattered window and onto the yard beyond.

Clementine looked back through and saw that Javi had stopped struggling, his eyes now closed and his breathing ragged. Pursing her lips, she took the pistol from her back pocket and aimed it at his head. With a single bullet, she ended Javi's suffering. Turning around, she ran full speed away from the ranch, AJ hugged close to her chest and tears streaking down her face, not daring to turn back.

"I couldn't go back to Richmond and tell Gabe I'd gotten his uncle killed; I just couldn't." She closed her eyes and wiped away stray tears. "That's how I ended up on the road."

"So there you have it," finished Clementine, looking away from Louis.

The boy had kept silent throughout the story, studying her expression as she told it. She'd never told him about this Javi, but Louis could tell he and Clem had been close at one point. He also knew that she blamed herself heavily, just like he did for Marlon.

"Clem, I," he stuttered, searching for the right words, "That wasn't your fault," he said simply.

"How can you say that?" she asked incredulously, "I led him into a death trap and he died saving AJ and me."

"Then that's why he died," Louis declared, squeezing her shoulder gently, "He sacrificed himself for you guys. You didn't know that would happen."

"I should have gone alone," she whispered, leaning forward and setting her head on Louis's shoulder.

"If you had, there's a chance you wouldn't be here at all," he told her, stroking her hair softly and breathing in her scent, "and I don't think AJ would either. Javi did a brave thing, and if he loved you as much as I think he did, he probably wouldn't have had it any other way."

Clem looked at Louis's chocolate brown eyes and frowned. How was it that he knew exactly what to say when she was feeling down? She didn't even know what she'd needed to hear, but apparently it was _that_. They stared at each other, basking in the other's company and breathing evenly, for a while. At last, Clem closed her eyes and leaned forward, pressing her lips against his.

"I just hope you know Marlon's fault wasn't your fault, either," she breathed, looking shyly up at him.

"I know," he replied, his voice barely above a whisper, "I'm going to have to learn to live with that. We both are," he said.

Clem smiled and kissed him again, "How is it that you know exactly what to say all the time?"

"It's rather easy actually," he said, the smile returning to his face.

"Hm?" she hummed contently, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm awesome," he declared, earning a slap on the shoulder and another kiss. From that day forth, the nightmares stopped haunting Louis. And as for Clementine? She learned to cope with her demons with her boyfriend and her little brother at her side.


End file.
